Headfirst for Halos

I wake up to an irritating beeping noise and my brain hammering against my skull.

"Mikey!" Is that Gerard? "Oh thank god you're awake!"

My throat feels like it has been scoured with steel wool and sandpaper when I say, "Gee?"

"Yeah, Mikey. It's me. I'm here." Why does he sound so upset? More to the point, why are there wires across my face and needles in my arms?

I reach up to rip the stupid wires off my face. I can't move one of my arms.

Oh god; they've tied me down.

They've fucking tied me down.

I miserably pick at the fucking handcuffs they've put me in with my spare hand.

"Where am I, Gee? Why have they tied me down?" I can barely keep my eyes open; the fog of sleep drifts across my mind lazily.

"Oh, Mikes." He bursts into tears. "Oh Mikey."

"Don't be upset Gee. Please don't cry." I slur my words.

He takes my free hand. "I'm so sorry, Mikey. I should have noticed. I should have taken better care of you. Oh Mikey." He bursts into fresh floods of tears. "You're in hospital, Mikes. You overdosed."

Oh.

Those pretty little pills did hurt me after all. I thought that they would stop the pain. I thought they would do what the Prozac did, but better. I thought wrong.

But I want them. Right now. I need them.

Gerard swallows. "Mom and Dad are coming soon, Mikes."

"They what?" Those words snap the sleep straight from my mind.

Gerard looks totally miserable. "I'm sorry, Mikey. I really am. I tried to stop them." He pauses for a second. "I love you, Mikes. No matter what. Don't forget that."

My parents come storming in; Gerard shrinks back into his chair, trying to disappear.

Perhaps I should explain.

My dad, Donald Way, is extremely homophobic. He was raised like that, I guess. He believes that, and I quote from one of his frequent rants, 'all fags should die'. He doesn't know about Pete. He doesn't know that Gee is gay, either. I hope he never does until the both of us have moved very far away. He's hit me and Gerard just for saying that 'gay people are still people'. Both of us had to get creative with mom's makeup so people at school wouldn't ask questions. I still have to cover my bruises. I still have to cover my marks from Him. My dad doesn't let us call him dad anymore. We have to call him 'sir' or we get slapped for disrespect.

My mom is a little milder. I think she was brainwashed by dad or something. She copies what he says, but a little half-heartedly. Dad has never hit her (to my knowledge, anyway). Mom has hit me couple of times, but she doesn't go apeshit on us like dad does. So I guess I should be grateful for that.

"Michael James Way how dare you!" My dad yells the second he lays his eyes on me. I breathe out my nose slowly and close my eyes.

Bad decision.

"Don't you dare disrespect me!" He backhands me. Hard.

Pain explodes across my face, my left cheek is on fire.

Don't cry Mikey don't be weak

"Donald..." Mom simpers. She probably doesn't want him to kill me in front of witnesses.

"I thought I raised you right, Michael! My own son, an addict! The shame of it. The doctors here wanted to put you in some kind of rehabilitation centre."

No. I can't live without my pills. I need more. Right now.

My dad is oblivious to me buzzing like an exposed wire.

"Well I was having none of it! You're some simpering fag who can't live without those damn things."

Oh, the irony.

"I found them all and threw them all out." He sounds proud. "All of them, Michael. You'll never have another."

"You what." Anger makes me brave.

"Don't take that tone with me." His voice is suddenly dangerous, not just angry. "Obviously, you still have to take the ones that make you seem normal."

For the first time, my dad sees Gerard. "What the fuck are you doing here, Gerard?"

"I-I want-ted to see M-Mikey, s-sir."

"Well, he doesn't want to see you. Fuck off." Gerard winces at his words.

As Gerard gets up to leave; I try to sit up, the handcuffs stop me reaching my brother.

"No! Gee! Please!" Please don't leave me on my own with fucking Hitler and his wife.

"Shut it, Michael." Dad slaps me again; I fall back down onto the hospital bed, tears stinging my eyes.

It's always been Gerard and I, The Way Brothers. It was always us versus them. Two boys against a vengeful dictator and his support act. My dad sees this and tries to tear rifts between us. I hope it never works, just like my meds. I hope that one day I won't be walking corpse.

Gerard hesitates at the door, looking at me desperately.

"Are you deaf, Gerard?!" Dad barks at him. "I said, get out!"

'I'm so sorry' he mouths at me. I smile weakly back.

Gerard leaves. I don't blame him.

Dad focusses his death glare on me. I need those pills more than ever. Desperation is coursing through my veins.

"So then." He says, anger barely supressed. "You're some kind of addict."

He isn't asking; merely stating facts.

"How dare you. How fucking dare you." He raises his hand again. "Answer me!"

"I-I'm sorry, da- sir."

"Oh believe me, the second you come home you will be."

A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.

I need something. Something to stop my thoughts crashing into each other.

Pills razors bulimia anything just make it quick.

Mom checks her relatively expensive watch (It was an anniversary gift, their 10th, I think). "Donald... we have to go."

The second dad looks at her, all his anger falls away. He must love her. I wish he loved me.

"Of course, honey." He turns back to me, fury colours his features again. "As for you..." He doesn't need to finish.

"Goodbye, Michael." Mom says quietly. She looks like she might say more. She doesn't.

"Come on, Donna."

They leave.

I lie back. I relax; Dad's gone. I relapse.

He had beaten me for cutting. He had found out. He had hit me over and over again. He told me all that was wrong with me. I believed Him. His word was gospel. It still is. It always will be.

He had told me that the next time He found out, I wouldn't be able to hold a razor, never mind cut straight. He told me that cutters had no place in His school.

He had seen a razor fall from my pocket. A twisted grin had lit up His face. He and His henchman had descended on me like wolves. I went down after four punches to the stomach. I was out after a kick to the jaw. He had waited until I came around to tell me to save him the bother and just kill myself. He told me I should kill myself because I was the most useless, pathetic, disgusting piece of shit.

I tried to obey Him.

Flimsy little flashes of steel weren't enough, not enough for what I wanted.

Gerard was working on an art project that day. A sculpture. He had huge blades locked away in his room.

I opened his door. I broke the lock on his art cabinet. I found the biggest knife I could. I take it upstairs.

The first cut was the hardest. My blood was a startling scarlet against my pale skin. But He told me I had to; so I carried on. It got easier. It got addictive.

I cut my thighs open. I cut again and again. I watch the blood pool in my across my legs. I slash my stomach. It burns. I like it. I was finally doing something right. I hack at my arms. Opening the same cuts twice. Huge, crimson crosses lace my arms. I take the blade to my wrist.

Gerard walked in. It took him a moment. He screamed. Ran to me. Wrenched the blade from me. I fell down. My vision blurred over. From tears or blood loss I didn't know. Gerard called an ambulance. He held cloth to my wounds. He held my hand as they took me away. He said, "Mikey. Oh Mikey. I'm so fucking sorry Mikey. Don't leave me Mikey. Please stay. I love you Mikey. You won't stay for you; so stay for me. Please Mikey, please." He sobbed. "It'll be okay Mikey. I swear it'll get better. Please Mikey I'm begging you don't leave me. It's always been us, yeah? The Way Brothers. You can't leave me now Mikey. You can't."

I remember his face as he held my hand in the ambulance. Tear-stained. Blotchy. He looked like the world had shattered around his eyes. He had looked utterly destroyed.

We arrived at the hospital. Gee was taken away from me by a man in a white coat, screaming for me the whole time.

I don't remember much after that.

"I'm sorry, Gee." I say out loud. "I'm so sorry."

How could I do that to my own brother?

Easy. He told me; He told me I had to. His word is law.

Sleep claims me as its own.

|-/

I wake again. Someone is slumped in the chair next to the hospital bed.

"Mikey?" They sound awful, like they've got to the point were tears mean nothing. "Mikey, baby?"

Only one person calls me baby.

Pete.

The relief that he's here is stronger than anything I've ever taken.

"Pete?" I croak, daring to open my eyes. I'm so scared that he might leave me.

The sight that greets me is comforting but disconcerting at the same time.

Pete slouches on the hard, dark grey plastic of the hospital chairs. He is wearing the light grey hoodie I love so much; he's wearing eyeliner. It's smudged in tracks down his cheeks, like he's been crying. He smiles, but I know Pete better than that. His eyes are so desperately powerless it breaks my heart. He looks so small and vulnerable, sat there. He reaches to take my hand. I grip back with all the strength I can muster. I need to show him I still work. I need to show him I'm not completely broken. I need to show him I'm worth his time. How? How can I do that when I'm not even worth my own time?

"Oh Mikeyway I was so scared. Why didn't you tell me, baby?" He sounds relieved, yet terrified.

"I'm sorry Pete. I truly am." I am not sorry that I took the pills, I'm sorry that I worried Pete.

"Mikey..."  He can see straight through my lie. I know he can. He knows I am telling barefaced lies to his face and he hates me for it. "I just wish that..."

He wishes that he wasn't with me. He wishes he wasn't being dragged down with me. There are plenty of people who actually deserve Pete. Patrick Stump, for instance. Patrick is very pretty, with talent to match. Between me and him, he would win all too easily. He's Pete's best friend and Pete loves him so much more than he loves me. I can tell. Pete looks at him like he's everything good in this world. Pete's never looked at me like that.

No-one has ever looked at me like that.

My own dad despises the sight of me. My mom has given up on me. My brother hates me for all I have put him through. My boyfriend is embarrassed to call me his significant other.

I don't blame any of them.

"I wish that..." He keeps getting choked up, words clogging his throat, desperate to get out all at once. I know the feeling.

I reach out to touch his face. To cradle his thoughts with my hands. To try and tell him, through one gesture, that he means the world to me and I will always love him.

He holds my hand to his cheek. Closes his eyes. I love his eyes. They are the mainly brown, but there are flecks of gold fanning out from his pupils. I get lost in them every day. Someone once said that the eyes are the window to the soul, then Pete has beautiful eyes and a beautiful soul. But there are heavy black bags under his gorgeous eyes. He's had insomnia for a while. He promised me he was better. Then again, I promised him the exact same thing. I thought he took pills to make him sleep easier. There's a pill for everything, isn't there? Pills to take pain away. Pills to supress thoughts. Pills to keep you one of the living dead.

"You haven't been sleeping." I say, my tone accusatory.

Pete drops my hand from his cheek, but keeps hold of it, gently rubbing his thumb back and forth over the back of my hand.

"I'm sorry, baby." He sighs. "I was worried about you."

Worried? About me? But why?

"Why?" my voice is tiny, desperate. It makes me sick.

Pete stares at me incredulously, like he can't believe the words that hang in the air.

"Because, Mikey," His tone is harsh and I flinch away from it. "My boyfriend just overdosed and he's been in hospital for two fucking days and he swore he'd never touch those pills again and he has. I think I'm allowed to be just a little fucking worried about it."

Every word from him is like a punch. Every word drags me a little further down in the pitch black water. Every word slices open old scars.

He sees me wincing and his face softens. "I'm sorry, baby. I haven't slept and you're in here and I just..." He gestures around him at the hospital ward.

"It's okay, Pete." Anything he does will be okay. I couldn't care if he killed twenty people, I would still love him so much it hurts. "I'm sorry."

"Oh Mikey." Pete's near tears again. "I love you so much. It would kill me if you ended up in here again."

He said he loves me. He said he loves me. Does he?

I wonder if every time he thinks of me, the dark cloud lifts a little. I wonder if every time he sees me, his heartbeat picks up in double time. I wonder if every time he holds me, he feels safe, so so safe. Like no-one will ever hurt him again.

I wonder if every time he sees me leave, all he can hear is the sound of his heart breaking and breaking and breaking.

"I love you too, Pete." The words hang in the air like Christmas lights, flashing over and over again. There have never been truer words that circle around us and pull us close together.

He lies next to me on the hospital bed. I curl into his chest, feeling every atom in my body straining to leave this prison of flesh and bone and connect with him, just to be with him. I nestle into the crook of his neck; he puts his arm around me. A strange joy feels like it's about to break out from my chest and flurry around me and Pete. Around us. It feels good, better than any drug. Better than painkiller blowing bubbles of serenity through my veins. Better than those little pink pills easing me from the thoughts that form my burial shroud. Better than too many sleeping tablets pulling me under.

Safe.

We lie like this for the longest time.